How to Get Your Office Set Up with Microsoft Teams

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How to Get Your Office Set Up with Microsoft Teams

If your company isn’t already using Microsoft Teams, you’re missing a trick! This solution is one of the best software collaboration tools out there, and it’s loved by businesses across the globe.

If you’re not convinced, the numbers speak for themselves. It’s estimated that Teams has 75 million users in 2022 – and that number is growing by the month. 

Microsoft Teams’ surge in popularity is closely tied to the pandemic and move to remote work. It’s safe to say that Teams is a workplace application for the modern workplace. It leverages the cloud to create an online hub where employees can chat, collaborate, brainstorm and much more. 

With more of us working remotely, Microsoft Teams is a great way to stay connected and productive. Even for those employees in the office, Teams provides an easy way to chat and keep track of different projects. 

What is Microsoft Teams?

Microsoft Teams is a communication platform with a wealth of features, including video conferencing, chat, cloud storage and integration of Microsoft 365 apps like Word and Excel. 

The solution is essentially a centralized interface, bringing together the various capabilities of Microsoft 365 with communications capabilities, so your employees can collaborate in real-time, wherever they are. 

Benefits of adopting Teams include: 

  • Reduced costs: According to Forrester, organizations could reach cost savings of at least $8 million by harnessing the potential of Teams. 
  • Enhanced productivity: The same study found that 88% of employees say Teams help them save time. 
  • Increased employee satisfaction: Teams enabled hybrid working, meaning your employees spend less time commuting and can achieve a better work/life balance. 
  • Seamless work: Teams has a host of features to make work easier and more pleasurable. For example, it automatically syncs employee calendars and uses artificial intelligence to make sensible suggestions about who to invite to meetings.

Deploying Microsoft Teams in Your Organization

Microsoft Teams has a few different pricing plans, tailored to organizations of different sizes. There’s Microsoft Teams Essentials, which is designed for small businesses who just want to use the platform’s chat functionality and don’t use Outlook email. 

If your business uses Outlook, we recommend opting for the Microsoft 365 Business Basic or Standard plans, which enable you to integrate Teams with the wider 365 suites of applications. 

Deploying Microsoft Teams is pretty straightforward, but you should bear a few things in mind before clicking install:

  • Prepare your network: If you already use Microsoft 365, you’ll need to check that your configurations are up to date. For new users, you will need to configure your network for Microsoft Teams. 
  • Get your license: As mentioned above, you’ll need to pick a license plan for Microsoft Teams usage. 
  • Train your employees: Help your employees make the most of Teams through targeted training.

If you’re not sure where to start with Microsoft Teams, don’t worry! Our experts are on hand to take care of the technical stuff for you. We’ll help you with a hassle-free deployment, so you and your employees can start reaping the benefits of the platform.  

Ways to Use Microsoft Teams

With Microsoft Teams in place, you can start using the application to its full potential. Here are a few use cases we recommend: 

Create Teams For Different Departments

Your organization probably has a few different departments – Sales, HR, marketing, finance and so on. It’s wise to create a unique team for every department. You can also create individual channels within each team for different topics. 

Use The App For Project Management

You can also invite your customers to Teams to better facilitate remote collaboration and improve project management. Make sure to look at your configurations when doing this. You don’t want to accidentally give a customer access to private, confidential information. 

Boost Workplace Culture 

If you have some employees working from home and some in the office, it can be tricky to maintain workplace morale. Luckily, Teams enables you to initiate company-wide conversations. You can plan internal events, get feedback from your colleagues and much more.

For example, the application has a feature called Microsoft Forms, which you can use to create polls for team meetings, ideas generating and so on. 

Enable Cloud Calls

Microsoft Teams includes functionality for cloud-based calls, which you can use instead of your standard phone system. This is a huge plus because cloud-based phone systems are known to be much more cost-effective and reliable than traditional alternatives. 

We’ll Help You Get The Most Out Of Microsoft Teams!

Here at C Solutions, we have a deep understanding of the Microsoft ecosystem, which we use to help you make the most out of Microsoft Teams. We’ll help you reduce costs, improve productivity and enhance the employee experience through a hassle-free deployment and ongoing support. 

Ready to get started? Contact us today online or call 407-536-8381 to learn more.